Never Saw Blue
by katleap
Summary: Duo must learn to cope without Heero. Can he face this new mission and survive? 1x2 3x4 part 1 of the Blue arc


**Never Saw Blue**

Author: Katleap

Pairings: 1x2 3x4

Warnings: attempted suicide, swearing, "Death" limeish lemon

Disclaimer: Don't own them.

AN: This is not a death fic. No matter how it may start. Please keep that in mind. Though not actually a song fic, it is loosely based and definitely inspired by the song Never Saw Blue.

This is part one of three of my Blue arc.

* * *

**Never Saw Blue**

It feels like now, it feels always,  
And it feels like coming home  
I never saw a blue like that before  
Across the sky, around the world  
You've given me all you have and more  
No one else has ever shown me how  
To see the world the way I see it now, oh I  
I never saw a blue like that before  
Oh, oh I, I never saw blue like that

-Never Saw Blue, Haley Westerna

* * *

The day of Heero's funeral, I went to The Beach. You know what beach I'm talking about. The one where he broke his leg and I told him that the only friend he had was me. He'd asked that his ashes be scattered there. After the ceremony, everyone gathered on the grassy spot on the cliffs above The Beach. The view of the ocean is spectacular if you ignore the remains of the base. I stayed for a while and when Quatre was distracted enough, I slipped off. The winding trail was familiar and I flew down its course. Taking off my shoes and socks, I stuffed the socks into the shoes and left them at the base of the path.

The sand is coarse on this beach, not that fine golden stuff, it's gray and rough. This beach was our beach. It was where we began our friendship. I wandered down the shore lost in my thoughts, until I was far enough away that I couldn't hear the reception any more. Then I turned to face the surf and sat down. I drew my knees up to my chest and pulled the hair tie out of my hair. The wind rapidly unbraided it, causing it to wrap around me like a cloak.

I remembered that day. The memory had been just below the surface of my mind since I had arrived. Quatre had suspected something but I couldn't tell him about this. It was a very precious, very special, very private thing between Heero and me. So I lost myself in the brilliance of the sky and the deepness of the ocean and remembered.

Blue. That is the first thing that comes to mind about that day. The sky, the ocean, his eyes. His beautiful blue eyes. They were deep and dark and full of secrets. I loved those eyes. _Love_ those eyes. The wars had been over for about 6 months. I had gone back to doing salvage with Hilde and found that it wasn't what I wanted to do. So when Sally came recruiting I jumped on the opportunity to join the Preventers. I settled in quite quickly, ending up with Wufei as my partner. The work was familiar and it was comforting. It also allowed me to search for Heero. He had disappeared after the Eve wars. No one knew where he went or where he was going. Not even Relena.

I loved him. The crush had developed when I shot him. As we spent more time together on missions and in safe houses, I got to know him better. I could read the tiny movements that expressed emotion. I got to understand the drive, the objective, the person. I understood him and I loved him. Then he vanished after the Eve wars, before I could tell him. I searched for a year, not a sign of him anywhere. I came back from lunch one day and found a note on my desk. It asked me to meet him there the next day. It wasn't signed. It didn't need to be. It was from Heero. I would know it anywhere.

He was waiting for me when I got there. I hugged him hello. We spent the day catching up, walking around the dying little town that had survived the destruction of the base. Eventually we ended up on The Beach, lying on our backs watching the clouds. It was getting late, almost time for us to say goodbye and go our separate ways. I did not want him to leave me again. It was there on The Beach that I first told him I loved him. It was there that he gathered me up into his arms and kissed me. He came home with me that night.

We visited The Beach often. It came to be our beach. Every time we went, he'd kiss me and steal my hair band, letting my hair fly in the wind. It was wonderful, though far from perfect. He wouldn't talk about his job. It often kept him away for days at a time. But then so did mine. We fought. We fucked. We lived. Then a job went bad. I got a call. By the time Wufei and I made it to the hospital, he was gone.

The past few days have been a blur. A collection of faces, locations, and sounds. I'm so cold inside. It's like everything is frozen. Funny though that the minute we came here things stopped being a blur. I remember all the details of the funeral. The speeches. Relena's hug and offer of comfort. She had gotten over her crush on Heero fast and they had been friends. I remember Une's and Sally's regret. I remember Quatre, Wufei and Trowa, their reassurances and gentle care. I could remember it all.

I could see his smile, hear his voice, smell his scent, a musk of strength and danger, mixed with gunpowder and rain. I could feel his arms around me, head on my shoulder, cheek against mine. I was cold, so achingly cold from the emptiness inside. A piece of me had been ripped out when he left. All I had left were my tattered pieces of him. Cold, so cold.

"Heero"

I stood, feet in the dry gray sand, hair whipping around me. For a long moment, I took in everything around me. The sand, the sky, the ocean, mostly the vivid blue that echoed so strongly of him. Finally the emptiness of it all. Then I walked away. Straight into that blue. As far into it as I could get. I immersed myself in it. Drank it all in. Drowned in it.

I had been cold before, now I was warm. Gentle and strong it wrapped around me, forcing the cold away. A dark figure emerged out of the shadows. It beckoned and I moved closer, though the blue was thick. He reached out. I fell into his embrace and the blue bled to black.

The face above me had green eyes, not blue. I recognized that as I was rolling onto my side, stomach heaving. Bile, salty water, coated the sand beneath me. I coughed. It hurt. It was then I realized that I was alive. I didn't want to be alive. I wanted to be with Heero. And Heero was..…gone.

"Why?" It came out low and hoarse. I levered myself from hands and knees to sitting.

"Why!" I asked again, seeing my friends this time. Wufei was on my right. He was wet. Trowa was on my left. He was soaked. I didn't see Quatre. I knew somehow that it was Trowa who had found me and hauled me out of the ocean. It was his fault. I didn't want to be here. He brought me back. I threw myself at him.

"WHY!" I screamed, knotting my hands into his shirt. "I didn't want to come back! I wanted to stay with Heero! WHY! Dammit! WHY!" I abruptly became aware that I was crying. I hadn't cried since I was 6 years old. I hadn't cried when he'd self destructed. I hadn't cried for him when I found out. I hadn't cried during the funeral. I was crying for him now.

"Why." It came out a broken whisper. "Heero." Something inside me just tore and it all came out. I curled in to Trowa, burying my head in his chest and sobbed. I cried for a long time. Cried myself to sleep. Heero.

* * *

It was the first time I had been back in this area of space since the moon base incident. The ship was a big luxurious one, almost reminiscent of the Peacemillion. It was owned by WEI. Quatre used it specifically to shuttle the bigwigs he needed to around space. He had commandeered it for this trip because it housed a large number comfortably.

I was curled up in one of the observation windows, where the sills are large enough to sit on. The lights were off, the only light coming from the stars and outside lights. It made the room dark with puddles of light pooling beneath the windows. There are several observation rooms. The one I had secreted myself in was small and out of the way, meaning I was all by my lonesome. Nobody else came here, except me. I had discovered it at the beginning of our trip and no one had disturbed me yet, though I was pretty sure that Quatre knew.

Ever since Heero's funeral, I haven't been alone. My friends were afraid that I would try again, so they managed to wrangle a promise out of me not to. I don't lie and that promise was easy to give. I had already made up my mind that I wouldn't. The blue of that day was a solitary moment, something that would never be repeated. That moment was like pressing the self-destruct button, I couldn't think of suicide in easy terms. Heero would have yelled at me for it.

I only went back to our apartment once. I say our apartment but really it was mine. Heero lived there whenever he wasn't on the job, but I always came home to it. I walked in and every memory that I had of Heero just over whelmed me. I remember sinking to the floor, right there in the entryway. The next thing I knew Wufei was carrying me out of the apartment. He told me later that Quatre had felt me fade out and called me five times on my cell phone. When I didn't answer, Quatre did a very Quatre like thing and panicked. He called Wufei and demand that he go check on me. I never returned to the apartment. Trowa and Wufei packed up my stuff and brought back to Quatre's house.

I resented that Quatre moved me into his and Trowa's house without asking me. After throwing the biggest temper tantrum, Wufei explained that they were worried about me and didn't want to leave me alone. He said that I was acting unstable and childish. He understood what it was like to lose a loved one and told me about Merian. I grudgingly decided to give it a try. After a few weeks I realized that the rooms Quatre had given me were basically my own apartment that was attached to the house. I also found that I was lonely and this allowed me to find comfortable company easily. I decided to stay.

Six months later, my world turned upside down again. On his way home from work Wufei entered the wrong store at the wrong time. He saved the woman's life but lost his own. He wanted his ashes to be scattered at the old L5 colony site, so they would mix with his family's. So here we were. I had lost my lover and my partner within six months of each other.

"Duo?"

Quatre. I didn't respond as he entered my sanctuary. Staring out at the stars, I could see his reflection in the window as he approached. He didn't say anything else just sat at the other end of the sill and waited.

I made him wait for a while. I knew what I wanted to say since before he had showed up but I was feeing obstinate. So we sat for almost an hour in the semidarkness.

"It's not fair." I didn't look at him.

"Life's not fair, Duo."

"It should have been me"

"He stepped in front of that bullet. For him is was heroic. If it had been you, it would have been considered suicidal. You are aware of that."

"I don't care."

"You should. If it had been you then the repercussions would have effected the rest of us dramatically. Une would have had to retire Wufei, because it would be questioned whether he was suicidal. It would be enough for my sisters or the board of directors to take control of WEI from me. The government has been trying to find away to remove us. You know that. It would give them the ammunition that they need. They would have all three of us be evaluated by shrinks who've been paid off to find us mentally incompetent and dangerously unstable. We would be locked away and there would have been nothing we could do about except go rouge and that would worsen the situation."

I didn't reply. Deep down I knew he was right. It couldn't have been me, it really would have looked like suicide. Quatre was needed as the public face and Trowa had been his shadow since the wars ended, so for him to go would set off suspicion. But I didn't want to admit it. I missed Heero.

Quatre sighed. "I know you miss him." He reached out and gently turned my head so that he could meet my eyes. "Be patient. In time, things will get better. You'll see."

He stood and walked to the door. I watched him this time. Quatre opened the door and paused. He looked back.

"Have a little faith in me."

Then he was gone and it was just me and the silent darkness.

* * *

I had arrived by boat. I was escorted to a nondescript car and loaded in. All curtsey of the Maguanac express. I didn't know the driver. He was some young thing that I hadn't met, probably a distant relation of one of the forty original Maguanacs. Not that I'm old or anything. The guy was probably older than me. In the four years since the last war Quatre's original Maguanac Corps had tripled in size and he had work for every single one of them. Its really not hard to imagine, my buddy is one of the richest men in the whole ESUN.

The driver didn't try to start a conversation and I was grateful for that. I watched out the window as the scenery flew by. Its funny but today I wanted to lose myself in the thoughts and memories.

It has been 2 years, 3 months, and 16 days since Heero's funeral. 1 year, 10 months and 25 days since Wufei's. I had stayed with Quatre and Trowa and worked for the Preventers. I couldn't seem to keep a partner and eventually Une simply gave me solo missions. If I absolutely needed a partner, Noin, Merquise or Trowa went with me.

The black suit jacket lay on the seat next to me. I rarely dress up and only if the occasion is very special. I undid the black tie, and stuffed it in my pocket. Then I unbuttoned the black dress shirt, revealing the black T-shirt under it. Its only proper to respect the dead. After all, it's not every day you skip your own funeral.

The car was pulling into the drive. Quatre had purchased the ruined base and the lands surrounding it. That included The Beach. This whole area was mostly deserted. Some strange and freakish circumstances had created enough unease that the tiny town had basically been abandoned. Quatre had bought all that he could and built a large estate on the cliffs above The Beach. When asked about it, he replied that he wanted a place that was far away from people and that he was a Gundam Pilot. If anyone deserved to be haunted by the ghosts of the destroyed base it was him.

It was a sprawling estate. Stables, airfield, full training course, not that anyone recognized that. I got out of the car, jacket slung over my shoulder and entered the house. I dropped the jacket over a chair and made my way through the rooms to the back veranda. I'd never been in this house before, but I had helped with the plans. I walked to the edge and leaned against the railing, gazing out at the ocean and spectacular sunset.

After Heero's funeral, I had not come back here. It was too painful. The salty wind brushed past me and I leaned into it. My latest mission had been a terrorist cell in the jungles of South America. I had to get in, hack the information needed out of it, destroy the base and get out. I accomplished the first three easily; it was the fourth I had problems with. I missed a returning platoon and they wanted a little revenge. They kept me pinned in the area for three days. My last transmission to the Preventers was "agent down, rescue impossible". They came anyway. After all, I was one of the legendary Gundam pilots, there was always the slightest chance I had survived. They found the original ambush site and then followed the trail of dead bodies to mine. I had been shot several times, knifed a few times, all and all it was a holey corpse they brought back. Even if I had been extracted immediately after, the chances were nil that I would have lived.

The funeral was broadcasted to the world. The third of the Gundam Pilots had passed away in a blaze of glory. I watched the whole tado from Quatre's yacht through the tiny camera's that Trowa and Quatre held. It had been an obligatory empty ceremony.

I sensed someone enter the room behind me. I didn't look to see who it was. Quatre kept the place minimally staffed with Magauacs he had personally selected. I didn't exactly feel like talking to anyone right then. Maybe if I ignored them, they would take the hint and go away.

Eventually there was a slight tug on the end of my braid. I stubbornly ignored it. Warm arms slid around me, their body pressed close against mine. I clenched my teeth and resisted the urge to deck the person behind me. "If this is some kind of joke…or illusion...I'm going to kill you." I meant my voice to sound threatening, instead it sounded rough and wavery.

The arms tightened and there was warm breath in my ear. "Does this feel like an illusion Duo?"

There is only one person in the world who can say my name like that. One single person and he was dead. My knuckles were white from clenching the balustrade so hard. I wanted to turn around. I wanted to see that it was him. I wanted to believe so damn badly. I wanted to, but I couldn't. I took a deep breath. "If this isn't you, I will put a bullet in my brain, right after I put one in yours." The wind had picked up my braid and was unraveling it.

"Turn around, Duo." His voice was low and there was the slightest swipe of tongue on my neck. I could feel him hardening against my ass.

I was trembling. Threatening to break. Threatening to shatter into a tiny million pieces. I couldn't breathe. My lips were moving in a silent mantra of "please" and "fuck". Slowly, ever so slowly, I turned my head to look over the shoulder where he had touched me….And I drowned.

Blue. That brilliant, singular, one of a kind blue. My blue. The vivid blue of Heero's eyes.

"Oh God. Heero" I breathed. Then I was kissing him and he was pulling me in. Overwhelming me. Engulfing me. Smothering me. I reveled in it. His touch was fire, sending streaks of it all over my skin. I was dying, drowning, Alive for the first time in so long.

He broke the kiss and attacked my neck with fury.

"I…..I missed... you" I managed to gasp out.

He lifted his mouth long enough to reciprocate. "Missed you too." He panted back. Then his lips reattached to mine, a hand sliding deeper into my hair, the other down my pants. What a sight we must have been. Me, with my hair loose and looking like a thin wild nymph. Heero all muscle and passion trying to meld me into him. All with a background of bright purple, red and orange.

I was never exactly sure how we made it from the veranda to the bedroom. The next conscious thought I had was of hitting the soft bed and Heero on top of me. There was not a lot of foreplay. He stripped us with all his brutal efficiency and then prepped me with two slick fingers, quickly joined by a third. Lube smoothed onto his hard cock and then he was pushing inside me. I didn't care. I wanted him in me. Even though I was almost too tight, having been celibate for over two years. Even though it hurt more than it should. Even though I knew there would be a little blood. I didn't care. This was evidence that he was real and pounding inside me.

Heero found my prostate and hit it with every single thrust. White fire raced through me, touching everything, my body screaming in blissful agony. I was high on a combinations of lust, love and pain. He wrapped his fingers around my shaft and pumped once and I came. Come splattered all over me, all over him. He spasmed, drove in twice more and came, white heat pouring into me, once more marking me as his.

He stayed over me for a few seconds, then pulled out and rolled to the side. We lay there, the only sound our harsh panting. After a while, Heero moved closer to me, his chest against my side.

"I wasn't too rough was I?" he asked. His finger traced my cheek. "I didn't hurt you?"

"You could never hurt me."

"Duo.."

I moved putting my hand over his mouth. "No. Not tonight Heero." A smile touched my lips. "lets worry about it in the morning."

"But.."

"I need you Heero. I need you in me. I need you to prove to me that you're real. That you're not some specter of my imagination. That I haven't completely lost it. Please. Just for tonight. I want whatever you give me." I shifted so that I was lying on top of him. "Rough" My tongue lapped at his neck. "Hard" I nipped his collar bone. "earth shattering wild" I licked circles around his left nipple. He was hard against my stomach. "Fierce." I slithered down his body, licking and kissing all that I could reach. "Passionate." I laved into his belly button and his tight control disappeared.

He flipped us and rubbed our hips together. My back arched, bringing me up to meet him. He stilled and brought his face down to mine. "Beautiful". Then he kissed me and I was lost.

* * *

I wasn't sure what woke me. It could have been the unfamiliar setting. It was ingrained that I never slept deeply in a new place for at least the first several months and after that if anything changed it was immediately noticeable and I woke up. It could have been the strange bed. It was a huge monstrosity that was nothing like I had slept in before. My own apartments within Quatre's house were always furnished to my preference, which was simple. Quatre did tasteful and elegant and a perfect mixture of simple and opulent, throughout his estates and specifics for permanent guests. More than likely it was the warm familiar body next to mine. His right arm was draped over my hip, a fistful of hair clenched in his hand.

I lay there for a while just listening to him breathe. I was feeling strange. There was this little ball in my gut that grew bigger every minute and I had no idea why. When it was so big it hurt, I climbed from the bed, carefully detangling his fingers from my hair. There was a white blanket on the chest next to the wall. I wrapped it around me. It was light and silky, perfect for summer. Though the summer was ending. I paused at the end of the bed and looked at him.

He lay on his stomach, legs straight, left arm under cheek. His dark hair, wild and messy on the pillow, right arm still outstretched over where I had been. All darkness and shadow, flitted with moonlight. It was almost enough to make me stay. But the knot inside twisted at my hesitation and I quietly fled the room.

It was a suite. I slipped from the bedroom into the main room. There was the half open door to the study off to my left. I threaded the indistinct furniture to the big window tucked into the corner. I curled in the seat, blanket wrapped around me, chin resting on my knees.

I dug down to that ball of knotted emotions and began pulling it apart. It was a mixture of things. There was love. I still loved Heero with all of my soul. As long as he would have me, I was his. Pain. It was like tearing the scar off a freshly healed wound. I was still raw from his apparent death. Relief. I was grateful he was alive. Loneliness. As close as he was physically, it felt like he was a million miles away. And right at the center of that complicated ball was uncertainty.

Over two years had past since I last saw him. I wasn't sure where I fit in his life anymore. Did he still love me? Had he found someone else while we had been apart? Did he want to continue our relationship or leave it in the past? It had ended the day he "died". I thought that I would never see him again and as much as I loved him I had moved on with my life. When my suicide had been aborted, I decided that I wouldn't spend my life in mourning and got back to work. Heero had done the same thing. I had no clue where we stood and as good as the sex was, it still didn't answer any questions.

So much had changed in the time we had been apart. After the barely avoided disaster at Heero's funeral, Quatre took me under his wing, willing or not. After a month of him going through every portion of my life and my feelings and reactions to things, he let me in. As good as the Preventers were what they were doing was not enough. Due to under financing, budget cuts and limited support the Preventers was unable to do half of what they needed too and the other half was so slow due to all the red tape. The Preventers was in a political nightmare and it would be years before they managed to climb out of it. The world peace we worked to hard to achieve would not last that long. It had already started crumbling a year after the last war.

Quatre had an idea. Heero came to him and between the two of them; they meted out a course of action. The plan involved removing three pilots and forming their own special ops team. The other two would remain on the outside gathering information and ferreting out problems. I do not know the original split. I do know that Trowa became a permanent physical figure in Quatre's life and parts of the plan went out the window. Trowa was brought in on the idea. Then the opportunity arose earlier than they thought and they had to move. It resulted in Heero's "death".

It turned out that I was the biggest wild card in the plan. I nearly blew it with my suicide. When Quatre deemed that I would not reject it, he sat me down and laid it out. I nearly killed him that day. Only the fact that Heero was alive saved him. Well that and the gun Trowa had pressed to the back of my head. Wufei had been brought in right after Heero's funeral. I had to wait a month.

The final plan was that first Heero, then Wufei and finally me would "die". We would then basically continue being harbingers of peace, except without the Gundams and the backing and concealment of the richest man in the whole ESUN. My biggest objection was the time between mine and Heero's deaths. Quatre would not even let me see him. It was too risky. He had been right at that time. Now the three of us were finally being reunited in Quatre's most private and secure estate.

And I had no fucking clue what to do.

So I sat there lost in my thoughts for a very long time.

It was the warm hand on my shoulder that brought me back. I looked up to meet a concerned pair of cobalt eyes. "Heero?"

"Have you figured out what you needed to yet?"

I dropped my eyes and scowled. "No". I had just been running in circles.

"I didn't think so." He sat down on the seat. I refused to look at him, instead playing with a loose thread on the blanket. "When you didn't come back I came to check on you. You looked so deep in thought that I hoped you would figure it out and come back to bed."

"But I haven't."

"I know. I came out to see if I could help." He reached out and took one of my hands in his. "Duo you're freezing."

"Doesn't matter." I mumbled.

He reached forward and caught my chin forcing me to look at him. "Yes it does. What you think and feel matter to me. Now tell me what's bothering you."

I couldn't decide if I wanted to rip my chin out of his grip and leave or throw myself at him. I did neither. I pulled the blanket tighter around me, the fabric cold against my skin. He released his grip on my face. I lowered my eyes back to the edge of the blanket. I noticed that Heero had put on his jeans before coming out to me.

I groped for the words to explain. "I…I'm sorry if I worried you. I… Its…Uh… I can't…" I tore my eyes from the blanket and met his. "I don't know where we stand anymore."

Heero smiled softy, the kind he used to give me when I was doing something stupid but he found endearing. Or at least that's what that smile used to mean. I didn't know anymore. "Come here." He opened his arms and I couldn't resist. I crawled into his embrace.

"I just…" I tried to explain. "I've missed you so damn much and I thought that you were really dead and Quatre wouldn't let me see you and then Wufei left and I was so much more alone and its been two years and I don't know how you've been doing or where you've gone or if you even feel the same way about me anymore." It was everything I could do to keep the tears from falling. "And I've missed you."

"Duo." He waited until I looked up at him. "I love you. My feelings for you have not changed since we parted. If anything they've grown deeper." He sighed. "When I heard about your suicide I knew that I could not lose you. I'm sorry that you had to wait so long, but I am not going anywhere. I'm not leaving you."

I could see the sincerity in those shadowed eyes. He kissed me. It was warm and wet and made me feel cherished. "Okay. I believe you." I murmured when he let me go.

He snorted. "Hn." And this time I knew exactly what he meant. "Lets go back to bed. We have the next two days off." The smile he wore could only be described at predatory.

"I don't think so, Yuy. You're just after my ass again." I uncurled from around him, muscles screaming from staying in that position for so long. I groaned. Heero got to his feet.

"You okay Duo." He sounded concerned.

I waved him off. "I'm fine. Just in one position for too long." I didn't see his reaction to that one, I was too busy convincing muscles that they wanted to work. I managed to stand and take about three steps before I collapsed. Heero was the only thing that prevented me from face planting on the floor.

He was looking at me with an eyebrow raised. "Oh shut it. Not my fault that it's been a while since I've been fucked through the mattress." I had completely forgotten about how post rough sex feels. Particularly after several rounds. The door to the bedroom seemed too far away. Heero suddenly let go of my elbow and then swept me up in his arms.

" 'Ro! Put me down! I can walk."

He chuckled "Baka." Then kissed my temple. In that moment, I realized that everything would be all right. It was home in his arms. I looked up into those perfect blue eyes and understood. I never saw blue like that, except with Heero.

Owari


End file.
